James Rocchi

When 'Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief' came out in 2010, it looked suspiciously as if the would-be franchise, based on Rick Riordan's best-selling teen adventure books, was going to get 'Golden Compass'-ed -- stopped after one installment and left to languish. But the first adventures of title…

As basically a three-word genre mash-up -- monsters vs. robots -- the announcement that Warner Brothers and Legendary Pictures were making 'Pacific Rim' didn't really need to offer much more than just that siren-song simple idea. But it did, promising a big canvas for a big talent, the director Guil…

New DVD releases, Blu-ray and streaming this week: goofy glee club action in 'Pitch Perfect,' kid-friendly fun in 'Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Dog Days,' Colin Farrell in the 'Total Recall' remake and more zombie-killing in 'Resident Evil: Retribution.' ...

New on DVD, Blu-ray and streaming this week: 'Bourne' is back, 'Ice Age: Continental Drift' tries to keep a franchise warm, plus the raucous comedy of Seth MacFarlane's 'Ted' and Christopher Nolan's first film 'Following' gets the Criterion treatment…

I watched the romantic comedy 'Playing for Keeps' a while ago, starring Gerard Butler as an ex-soccer star adrift professionally and romantically, and the less said about that, the better. Soccer is a tough sport to capture on-screen, and an even tougher one to make Americans care about in…

Brad Pitt and director Andrew Dominik's 'Killing them Softly' opens this weekend, and it's a film I consider as strained as it is strong -- for every great performance there's a heavy-handed bit of symbolism, and all the subtext is pretty much text. But it -- and a recent Va…

There's always the very good question of what, exactly, to watch on Thanksgiving when you're relaxing at home and -- not to put too fine a point on it -- jammed to satiety with food. In the past, I've recommended all-American epics like 'A Bridge Too Far' or Mann's 'Last of the Mohicans,' but this y…